


The Front Door

by Fluphies



Category: Andi Mack (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 08:35:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12577872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluphies/pseuds/Fluphies
Summary: Cyrus is fine with how things are. Cyrus has the best friends in the world, the most understanding ex-girlfriend, and Jonah to talk on the phone everyday. But Jonah starts showing up on his doorstep for advice about his girlfriend and Cyrus can't handle the baggage.





	The Front Door

Iris and Cyrus sit in a booth at the Spoon eating baby taters and talking about movies.   
“I’m serious,” Cyrus says. “They’re playing Back to the Future at the theater this weekend. Only one dollar to get in. We have to go.”  
“It’s a dollar to get in, but concessions are still outrageous.” Iris pops a tater into her mouth.  
Cyrus’ phone lights up with a notification for the twentieth time in the past twenty minutes.   
“Are you gonna answer that?” Iris asks, gesturing to the phone on the table in front of them.  
Cyrus opens his messages. “It’s Andi.” He puts his chin in his hand. “And Buffy asking me if Andi texted me.”  
“Is there drama?”  
“There’s always drama. Andi and Jonah started studying together because Andi has been distracted since they started dating. And apparently, she did even worse on this last test.”  
Iris scrunches her nose. “Rough.”  
“Yeah,” Cyrus dips his tater in his milkshake. “She wants Buffy and I to come over.”  
“So go.”  
“But you and I were--”  
“Cyrus,” Iris says, “we can eat baby taters any day.”  
The kids pay their bill and get ready to leave the Spoon when Jonah steps through the door, cold winter air following. His cheeks are red from the wind and he takes off his hat, searching the restaurant. He spots Cyrus and runs over to him.  
“Can we talk?” he asks.  
“Sure. Of course.” Cyrus eagerly obliges. Then he remembers where he was heading. “But not right now.”   
He and Iris push out of the restaurant and into the cold before hugging and heading their separate ways.  
“Okay,” Jonah says to himself, staring out the window as Cyrus walks away.

Cyrus sits in the rolly chair in Andi Shack rolling two marbles in between his hands and listening to Buffy be the greatest at advice.  
Andi is reclined on her bench with her head up to the ceiling like she’s at a therapist’s and Cyrus would know. “Jonah asked me on a date.”  
“Okay, I left baby taters for this?” Cyrus asks.  
“I’m with Cyrus on this one,” Buffy agrees. “You’ve been dating for a month now. How is this news?”  
“He said he had something amazing planned for our one month this weekend and now I can’t stop thinking about it.” Andi lets out a breath.  
“You’re excited,” Cyrus says. “Be excited. Let him sweep you off of your feet.”  
“I’m not excited. I’m so nervous I am sweating buckets. And I already have my makeup test to study for on friday. But this is all I can think about.” Andi buries her face in her pillow. “It’s like, when I’m with Jonah, all I’m allowed to think about is him. Which I know isn’t true, but it feels like it.”  
Buffy looks at Cyrus who sits uncomfortably, still playing with the marbles. “Maybe you need a break,” she offers.  
“Maybe I need to be resuscitated.”

The next day, Cyrus has his phone on speaker, doing homework and snacking on Goldfish crackers. He’s listening to Jonah strum on his guitar in incomprehensible tunes. That’s not entirely true. The group had a movie night last week and they watched Starstruck. Jonah wouldn’t admit it, but he really liked it. He was definitely absentmindedly playing the song “Hero.”  
Over the phone, Cyrus hears him put the guitar down.  
“I have no fricking idea what I’m gonna do for this anniversary. Why did I tell her I had something amazing planned? I have absolutely nothing.”   
Jonah rambles over the phone while Cyrus lays on his floor scribbling notes from his text book, half listening. Jonah called him a lot recently and it was usually the best moments of Cyrus’ day, but he really kept rambling today.  
“Maybe I should cancel. I mean, one months aren’t all that important right.”  
Cyrus goes to answer, but is interrupted.  
“Who am I kidding? They’re the most important. And the best idea I have is taking her to stupid Olive Garden.”  
“Listen, Jonah,” Cyrus says finally. “Anything you do will be enough.”  
“I know, man. I want Andi to be happy, but it’s like she can't breathe around me.”  
Cyrus, definitely not wanting to talk about this, offers the most nonchalant type of answer. “Wow, you take her breath away.”  
“I know. I know. But like, errg,” Jonah groans, “it's so frustrating! I want this to work out so bad. I just like her so much.”  
“I know you do.” Cyrus says this then they both go silent for a moment.  
“Sorry, I keep going on and on about my relationship.”  
Cyrus sits up, closes his textbook, and brings the phone to his ear. “It's fine.”  
Jonah pauses. “So… how are you and Iris?”  
“Oh, Iris?” Cyrus thinks about the thing he forgot to tell Jonah. It just didn’t seem important at the time. “Yeah, we broke up.”  
“What? When?”  
Cyrus knew Jonah would ask these questions, and that’s why he avoided telling him. “Like two weeks ago.”  
“You were hanging out yesterday!” Jonah all but screams.   
“Yeah, hanging out,” Cyrus defends. “We realized we were better as friends.”  
Cyrus can hear Jonah smirk over the phone and rolls his eyes even though no one is there to see.“You know what they say,” Jonah teases. “Marry your best friend.”  
I wish I could. Cyrus shakes his head. “Who says that?”  
“Dude, like everyone.”  
Cyrus doesn’t respond.  
“You're kidding. It’s like common knowledge. Go get Iris back.”  
“I don't want Iris back,” Cyrus says. “That's the whole point. I don't take her breath away and she doesn't take mine away.”  
“That's not a requirement,” Jonah tells him.  
“It kind of is. Yours and Andi’s relationship is like the poster child for relationship requirements.”  
Jonah laughs and it kind of trails off into the boys sitting in comfortable silence for a while. Then he asks, “So what are you doing this weekend?”  
“Movie date with Iris,” Cyrus answers simply.  
“And you say you’re not dating!”  
Cyrus laughs. “We’re not! I swear.”  
“Okay, sure, I believe you,” Jonah says sarcastically. “Talk to you later Cy-guy.”  
Oh, if he only knew.

Saturday is the night of Andi and Jonah’s big date and Cyrus is trying not to think about it. He tries not to think about it while he and Iris stand in line for tickets and when he pays for overpriced buckets of popcorn and when they walk into the theater.  
He scans the rows for seats when he sees two familiar faces, Andi and Jonah sitting up near the front, his arm already around her shoulder while he whispers something in her ear, a huge smile on her face.  
Iris notices. “Come on,” she says, pulling Cyrus along. “Let’s go sit in the back.”  
They sit in the center of the back row right below the projector and for the whole movie Cyrus stares at the back of his best friend’s head and the head of the guy who takes her breath away.  
When the credits roll, Cyrus is shaken back to reality, a crowded theater, a half eaten bucket of popcorn, the sweet girl on his left, and the couple fourteen rows in front of him. He stands up, not wanting to stay a minute longer.  
The lights don’t flood the theater like they usually do. Only the lights over the front few rows come on and an usher walks out in front of the screen with an acoustic guitar in his hands. He passes it to someone.  
The music of the credits end and Jonah stands up, guitar strap over his shoulder. The theater is half empty now, but everyone who stayed has their eyes on him.   
He wipes his palms on his jeans. “I’m really nervous. This is the first time I’ve done this in front of a crowd,” Jonah says.  
Cyrus buries his head deep into his puffy winter jacket and slumps as far down in his seat as he possibly can, praying Jonah can’t see him. Iris squeezes his hand.  
Jonah smiles. “Andi, this is for you.”  
Cyrus recognizes the song immediately.  
“I’m no superman. I can’t take your hand.  
And fly you anywhere you want to go, yeah.”  
Jonah has played the guitar for him more times than he could count, but he’s never heard Jonah sing.  
“I can be everything you need. If you’re the one for me,   
like gravity I’ll be unstoppable.”  
Cyrus wills himself to block out the lyrics he knew all too well.  
“If you’re the one for me, then I’ll be your hero.”  
Jonah sings the words to “Hero” from Starstruck. The guitar sounds the same as it did over the phone, but Cyrus can’t forget that the lyrics aren’t for him, that Jonah doesn’t even know he’s here.   
When it’s over, the remaining observers clap and Andi wraps her arms around her boyfriend beaming.

“And the worst part is he doesn’t even know. It’s like he’s rubbing it in my face, but I can’t blame him,” Cyrus says. He’s in Buffy’s room later that night. He called for an immediate emergency sleepover when he and Iris left the theater. Iris had to go home, but he rode his bike straight to Buffy’s front door. When she opened it, he couldn’t hold it in any longer.   
She put her arms around him as he cried into her shoulder.  
After Buffy snuck him up to her room, she made two cups of hot chocolate and a plateful of pizza bagels.  
“Tell me exactly what happened.”  
Cyrus swallowed his bite. “I went to Back to the Future with Iris and Jonah and Andi were there for their anniversary and when the credits ended, he stood up and sang a song for her.”  
“What song?”  
“‘Hero’ from that movie Starstruck we watched last week.”  
“Well, that’s a horrible song choice,” Buffy said.  
Cyrus sighed. “It’s an adorable song choice and you know it. And the worst part is he doesn’t even know. It’s like he’s rubbing it in my face, but I can’t blame him.”  
Buffy gives him a look of pity.  
“Stop that,” he says. “I’m fine. I’ll get over it. I’m just an emotional person, but it’ll pass.”  
Buffy smiles softly. “Well, I’m here until it does.”

Cyrus rides his bike home while the grass is still coated in frost and the Sun is still low in the morning sky. He snuck out of Buffy’s house even before her parents woke up, leaving a note on Buffy’s pillow telling her he left.  
As Cyrus turns onto his street, he sees someone on his front porch, but it isn’t until he gets a few houses down that he can tell it’s Jonah.  
Cyrus drops his bike in the grass.   
“Cyrus,” Jonah says, standing up on the step. He sniffles, maybe from the cold, maybe from crying. “Andi and I fought.”  
He doesn’t respond.  
“I can talk to you, right?”  
“Of course,” Cyrus says quietly.  
He lets Jonah into his house. His parents aren’t awake yet, but he opens the window blinds in the den and lights the fireplace to warm them up. He looks at the clock. It’s 7:30 am on a Sunday.  
It feels like Jonah and Cyrus are the only two people awake in the world. They sit on the couch with noticeable distance between them.  
“I took Andi to a movie,” Jonah says. And Cyrus knows for sure Jonah didn’t see him. “And afterwards I sang her a song.” He doesn’t say which song, but Cyrus already knows.  
Jonah continues, “And I walked her home, and on the way home, she seemed upset, but she wouldn’t tell me why. She said it was the movie, but I didn’t get it.”  
“Is that all she said?” Cyrus asks, even though he doesn’t want to hear the rest.  
“She said I would know if I thought about it, about her life, but I was at a loss. She said I took up too much space in her mind.”  
“You take up too much space in a lot of people’s minds.” Cyrus says without thinking.  
Jonah glosses over it. “And she said she doesn’t take up enough of my mind. How does she even know?”  
“Andi’s a smart girl,” Cyrus says. “Intuitive. If something’s up, she tunes into it quickly. That also means she thinks everyone else is as smart as her. But we’re not.”   
“Is it my fault?” Jonah asks, eyebrows knitted together in concern.  
Cyrus doesn’t have the heart to tell him that maybe it is. “No.”  
“Then how do I fix it?”  
“You don’t. You wait. And if she wants to be with you she will.” Cyrus feels a pang in his chest, the kind of pang that’s jealousy and guilt all wrapped in one, because he wants to be the friend to help and he wants the whole world to be happy, but it feels like it’s always at the expense of his own happiness. “You wait and in the meantime you try to your hardest to understand and move on even if it hurts.” Even as Cyrus says it, he knows it’s the same advice he gave himself every time he saw Andi and Jonah together, every time it seemed more and more impossible for Jonah to ever like him back.  
Jonah leans over onto his shoulder and Cyrus tries his hardest to breathe like a normal person. Cyrus watches as Jonah’s eyes flutter open and closed, his hair against Cyrus’ neck, Cyrus’ arm around him because it seems like the right thing to do. And even if they’ve hugged before, this is different. It’s different because Cyrus feels that same pang as always times ten thousand. But he’s comfortable and warm, and he can’t help but feel bad about it.  
“You’re the best, you know that, Cyrus?”  
“I’m really not.”  
“You are,” Jonah says. “You’re the best friend a guy could ask for.”

 

In class on Monday, Andi seems chipper. She seems like Andi when she’s on top of her game. She’s also had the weekend to think things over, and the verdict is that she’ll tell Buffy and Cyrus why the movie made her feel the way it did.  
She taps her fingers on the desk, Buffy and Cyrus both turned around to listen. “Back to the Future is all about Marty McFly trying to get his parents to fall in love again.”  
Buffy and Cyrus go from confused to enlightened all within a moment.  
“And your parents--” Buffy says.  
Andi doesn’t make her finish. “Yeah. You guys get it. And Jonah knows that Bex turned down the proposal, but he didn’t get it. Am I wrong to be upset?”  
“No,” Buffy says immediately. “Your feelings are valid.”  
“Cyrus?”  
Cyrus realizes he hasn’t said a word the whole time. “I don’t know. Did you explain it to him?”  
“I didn’t know I had to.”  
Cyrus sighs. “I’m not saying you do. But I want to make sure you’ve communicated completely.”  
“Don’t therapist me,” Andi says. “That’s our problem. Jonah and I don’t talk about the big stuff. We talk about math class and frisbee and wristbands. How am I more open with my friends than my boyfriend?”  
“Because friends are important, too,” Buffy grins. She pulls them all into a hug, be it uncomfortable over the desks.

At 8:00 pm it starts to snow. At 9:00 pm it becomes a blizzard. At 9:42 pm there’s a knock on Cyrus’ door. He’s lucky he’s the one who answers it.  
Jonah stand on his porch, covered in snow, shivering like crazy.  
“I need to talk to you,” he says. “It’s about Andi.”  
“I can't listen to you talk about Andi anymore,” Cyrus admits, more bluntly than intended.  
Jonah breathes out heavy into the cold air. “We broke up.”  
Cyrus got a call from Andi two hours earlier. He would have been with her comforting her, but they decided not to face the snow. He says, “I know. You think she hasn’t told me already. I don’t need you to come here and ask me how to get her back. You do what I told you. You wait. And if she wants to be with you she will. Now, are we done?”   
Cyrus tries to close the door, but Jonah stops him with his hand.  
“What?” Jonah asks, hurt and confusion on his face.  
Cyrus, feeling bad, finally ushers the boy into his front room. “You still don't get it.”  
Jonah, though thankful for the warmth of insulation, stays angry. “Of course not! You don't tell me anything.”  
“When you two fought, you ran to me, you cried on my shoulder.” Cyrus waves his hands like it’s obvious. “And I hate that you think that's okay.”  
“Wanting a supportive friend is a bad thing?” Same hurt expression.  
“No.” Cyrus can’t get his words right. He can’t handle that Jonah has shown up on his doorstep twice now as if he’s some kind of safe haven, yet Cyrus still doesn’t get any of the benefit. He’s so frustrated, he becomes truthful and vindictive. He wants Jonah to feel bad about everything. “No, but think about it. Really think about why Iris and I broke up.”  
Jonah’s expression goes slack.  
There we go, Cyrus thinks, think about how it felt.  
“Cyrus…”  
“I can't stand to be around you anymore.” There’s the pang again. It’s all guilt this time because Cyrus can’t stop saying the truth. “I could. I could when you were with Amber, and when you were single, and when Andi and you started dating for real.”  
“Then what happened?”  
Cyrus feels his eyes well up. “You should've been wholly head over heals for her. You kept saying that you were.”  
Jonah looks sorry and it makes it all worse.  
“But you'd still look at me.” Cyrus lets the first tear fall. “like I took your breath a away. And that scared me more than anything.”  
Jonah doesn’t say anything.  
“You talked to me about stuff you should have talked to your girlfriend about,” Cyrus continues. “You should have talked to Andi when she was upset, but you came to my door asking for my help and like the idiot I am, I gave it to you.”  
“I don’t think you’re an idiot, Cyrus.”  
Cyrus nods, wipes the tears off us his cheek. “I think you should go. Warm up in here if you have to, but when you’re done, go home.” Then he walks down the hall, leaving Jonah in the front room, covered in snow and all alone.

It’s weird. It’s weird because with Andi and Jonah’s breakup came the breakup up of Cyrus and Jonah’s friendship, and that blip, that blip where Jonah becomes non existent for a moment, becomes the norm.  
And then something miraculous happens. They rebuild. It starts slow at first, but within a week they can look at each other. Within two they can smile across the hall. Not just Jonah and Cyrus, but all of them. Within a month, Jonah is back at the Spoon eating baby taters with his three best friends.   
For once, it’s okay. Nobody is stringing anyone along or breaking anyone’s heart. They just exist together for the first time in a long while.

Cyrus is happy when he gets home from the Spoon, undeniably happy and he can’t tell why. He smiling all through dinner with his dad and stepmom. He’s smiling as he brushes his teeth before bed and as he changes into his pajamas.  
When he gets into bed and goes to turn off his lamp, there’s a knock at the door. He waits a minute to see if his parents will get it but they don’t. There’s another knock so Cyrus gets out of bed and goes to answer.  
It’s Jonah on his doorstep once again.  
“Just call next time,” Cyrus says.   
Jonah doesn’t listen, just invites himself into the house.  
“Remember what I said when I came to you after my fight,” he says. “At the very end?”  
Cyrus folds his arms, a bit embarrassed to be in his pajamas. “Jonah. I'm at a loss.”  
Jonah points at him. “I said you were the best friend a guy could ask for.”  
“I can't do this. If this is your way of saying you just want to be friends, just stop. You don’t have to say it. Having you back as a friend is the greatest thing I could ask for.” Cyrus feels like running away or fast forwarding to the end of this conversation. “I know that's what you want. I never expected anything else. And it's fine. I'm chill.” He becomes the rambler, talking with his hands, repeating his points.  
“Stop. Let me finish,” Jonah says. He waits for Cyrus to pay attention to him. “You know what they say: marry your best friend.”  
Cyrus tilts his head like Jonah is making a sad kind of joke. “If this is a proposal, the answer is no. I want to be able to grow a beard before I even think about marriage.”  
Jonah shakes his head. “I'm not asking you to marry me.”  
“No, you already proposed, you can't undo a proposal.”  
“Cyrus. Listen.” Jonah grabs Cyrus’ hands and stares at them. Quietly, he says, “I'm saying I like you.”  
“No, you don’t.”  
“I do. When you stopped talking to me, Cyrus, that was the worst thing to ever happen to me.” Jonah links their fingers and looks up. “That’s how I know I like you.”


End file.
